AND THE LIVING IS EASY - Twenty Years Later
by pansyass
Summary: Jordan Catalano. Angela Chase. What more does anyone need to hear?
1. Chapter 1

**AND THE LIVING IS EASY**

 **CHAPTER ONE - SCHOOL'S OUT**

She's 35 now and that makes Jordan 37, and that makes it twenty years since she was hatching plots to run into him under the bleachers or in the boiler room, so Angela almost never thinks about those things anymore. Maybe she remembers sometimes just how young she was once, and how it felt to be one of the many girls who wanted Jordan Catalano back then. But remembering him hasn't hurt for a long time, and now there's just a fondness left for that part of her life, for the days of Ricky and Rayanne and being fifteen and longing for Jordan, all a long time ago.

And Jordan barely remembers Angela Chase and that long ago spring and summer when he thought he was in love with her, because that was the year that everything finally fell apart for good in his family, the summer his mom really left his dad, which was when his dad got crazy mean, and when the whole thing about staying in high school blew up in his face. Now, twenty years later, when he occasionally drives down Angela's street, or past Graham's restaurant, or runs into Patti somewhere, he just remembers a blur and a hurt girlfriend and how shitty it had all felt, to be responsible for someone's feelings, how he couldn't do it then, and hasn't really wanted to do it ever since then. But he doesn't quite think it out that way. It's just sort of a hazy jumble of memory around Angela Chase, a nice girl who was once his girlfriend for a little while a long time ago, someone who grew up, got herself out of this town and actually stayed out, something he's never quite managed to do himself.

He does remember that he dreamt about her a few times though, and that he woke up one morning, maybe five years ago, smiling, dreaming that she'd called his name on the street and waved at him, that he'd been so happy to see her.

Maybe that's why it's confusing when he hears her voice again for the first time in years.

#

"Jordan?" he hears someone saying, and the voice is too familiar to make sense of, coming from this person he doesn't even recognize, a slim, pretty woman, dressed a bit too nicely to live here, holding a little girls hand.

He stands by his truck in the Big Guy parking lot, blinking in the sunlight, slightly confused, and then she laughs and tucks her hair behind her ear and he knows who it is.

"Didn't recognize you for a minute, Ange," he says, feeling strangely happy, "you're all grown up now."

"You haven't changed at all," she says, and it's true. In his jeans and plaid shirt, hair just a little shorter than it was the last time she saw him, Jordan looks at least ten years younger than she knows he is, and ten times handsomer than he has any right to be.

"Sophie, this is Jordan," she tells the little girl, smiling down at her, "my friend from a long time ago."

"Hi Sophie," he says, as a miniature Angela looks up at him curiously, and then he grins back at Angela.

"Do you have children?" she asks him.

"A boy," he says softly, "just five now."

"I'm seven," Sophie informs him, and again, he and Angela look at each other and smile in a way that feels full of quiet fondness and grown up memory.

He's so full of their moment, of looking into her eyes, that he doesn't say much or ask her anything at all about herself. He might have, but then Andy comes bouncing up to them, smiling and apologizing for taking so long, explaining that she'd run into someone. There's a slightly awkward pause as she's introduced, before he and Angela both say how good it was to see each other again and then he's in the truck, driving them back to work, totally confused.

"Old girlfriend?"

"Yeah."

"I could tell. Is she married?"

"Looks like it."

"She thought we were together."

"Maybe. Fuck. Yeah," he mutters, realizing that was probably true.

"You really liked her," Andy says, surprised. As long as she's worked for Jordan, five days a week for four years now, she's never seen him look at anyone the way he was looking at Angela, never heard his voice as soft as the voice he was talking to her in, or seen him so distracted.

"Yeah, well, " he says, shrugging it off, "it was a long time ago. She doesn't live here anymore."

It's true, he thinks, pulling up in front of the garage, Angela Chase is part of the past. But there's a funny tug in his heart, something calling him back, a memory of something he didn't know he'd been missing. He tries to put it away, but it's there now, in his body, the feeling of closeness, of being held. And it makes no sense to remember it or to want it now, he tells himself, because Angela Chase, the girl he'd loved, who'd loved him back, is all grown up, and married to someone else. And why that should hurt so bad makes no sense at all.

#

"How was Big Guy?" Patti asks, kneeling down to beam at Sophie adoringly. She loves being a grandmother, and since it doesn't look like Danielle is ever going to settle down and bring forth another, Sophie is the recipient of all her grandma's love.

"Sophie had a strawberry milkshake," Angela tells her mom.

"Do you miss Strawberry, honey?" Patti asks Sophie.

"Yes," Sophie tells her seriously, "but Daddy says he'll give her extra apples while I'm gone and make sure she's happy."

"I should have just incarnated as a pony," Angela laughs, "maybe next time."

She thinks for a moment about telling Patti she'd seen Jordan, and realizes that it's something she doesn't really want to share. There's a warm feeling in her heart right now for whatever it was that had passed between them, the way he'd somehow let her know she'd been important to him, and she doesn't want to dilute it by talking about it.

Funny how things change with time, Angela thinks, feeling old and wise. Even after Jordan had left high school, and then left town, she'd never really been over him. She'd made it through school and had other boyfriends but she'd stayed hungry for any crumb of news about Jordan, hoped against hope that she'd see him again, carried him in her heart for those school years, until finally she'd left town herself, gone off to college. By then she'd realized that he was in her past, and that life would hold other things for her. She'd moved on, been happy, hoped he was well, and never been bitter about him. But it had been a hard lesson to learn, finding out that sometimes life takes things away from you and there's nothing to be done about it.

He looks like he's doing okay, she thinks. And the girl, the girlfriend maybe, had seemed nice. They'd been comfortable together. I wish him well, she says to herself, and even while a tiny part of her still wishes he was hers, the grown up part of her knows better than to try and relive the past, even in her imagination.

#

"You're not coming in?" Andy asks, puzzled, when Jordan doesn't turn the engine off.

"No," he shakes his head, looking puzzled himself, "I'll be in later."

He doesn't even know what he's doing, but by the time the truck's turned around and headed in the direction of Angela's house he's starting to figure it out. He can't believe that he's going to drive by her place like a lovesick kid, but then he can't imagine walking up and knocking on the front door either. Operating on some kind of a homing instinct, he keeps driving, until he's in front of her house, and then it's only the sight of the shiny new BMW convertible parked in the driveway that shocks him back into reality.

She'd looked rich, he realized. Not that he'd really noticed what she was wearing, but there'd been something there, some sense of money, about her.

She's gone, he tells himself, not looking back, and then he doesn't stop till he's an hour out in the country, surrounded by rolling green farmland, somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, almost the only car on the road.

#

When the kitchen phone rings, Angela wonders if she should bother picking it up. Her parents are almost the only people she knows who've kept a land line, and she hasn't used one for so long it seems like a historical artifact. But something inside her tells her to answer the phone.

"Hello," she says, waiting to be surprised, and she is. Or then again, maybe she isn't.

"Angela?"

"Jordan?"

"Yeah. Uh, hey," he truly doesn't know what he's doing, but at least he didn't just hang up when he heard her voice, "I wanted to say how happy I was to see you."

"Me too Jordan," she says warmly, feeling her heart flood with happiness

"You know, I," he starts, and then he lets it come out, the apology that's twenty years overdue, "when I left, all those years ago, it wasn't about you. I just couldn't stay here, back then."

"I know, Jordan."

There's a silence then, and they both know it's not because there's nothing to say, but because it's enough now to just be quiet together.

"I always kept you in my heart, Ange," he tells her softly after a minute, and there it is, exactly what he needed to say, exactly what she needed to hear.

"You too, Jordan."

Hearing Angela Chase say his name, her voice soft and full of love after twenty years, has him so rewired, he actually steps back outside of the foggy zone his feelings live in most of the time.

"Are you married, Ange?"

"Jordan," she laughs and feels sad at the same time, "I am. And I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you asked."

"Are you happy normally? I mean in your life?"

"I love my family," she says, "my daughter and my husband who works too much. I live in a beautiful place. I'm grateful for what I have. I guess that's happy."

"Good," he says thoughtfully, "that's good. I'm glad."

"How about you?" she asks, "Tell me a little about your life."

So he does. Sitting in his truck, out pretty much in the middle of nowhere, he tells her things he'd never even think to tell anyone, little details about the old house he's been rebuilding for a few years now, how he plays his guitar in front of the fire and remembers playing in the loft, about his dog, Clancy, who's getting old. He tells her some of the other things too, like how he still hangs with Shane, who's a policeman now, married with kids, and how running his uncle's garage and towing business has worked out okay, and how it didn't work out okay with his son's mother, how the two of them are in Philadelphia now and he sees his kid a couple times a month. They talk until his ear's on fire and he wishes he could find those stupid earphones he hasn't seen for a while.

"Is this what people call closure?" she says, when the conversation slows to a pause, "because it feels like things are whole again now."

"Maybe? I always hated that, people looking for closure, talking that way."

"Me too," she laughs.

"But you're right, it feels," he pauses, and waits to see what word is coming out of his mouth, "complete, I guess."

"Well," she says, sounding surprised, "imagine that."

After they get off the phone, he wanders over to a big oak tree, the most imposing thing in sight, and drops to the ground, squatting with his back against its trunk. Something's shifted, opened inside him, and he's smart enough to not run around in his mind trying to name it. Looking out at the fields, the sky, he let's it all reach in and touch him, and even though he's not looking for a word, if he had to choose one it would be probably be gratitude.

#

There's a new tranquility in Angela too. For the next week, still at her mom's house, she finds herself strangely at peace with life. Visiting home has always held a certain amount of boredom and irritation to it, but she's content now to spend these early summer days with her parents and Sophie. Jordan doesn't call again, but she hadn't expected him to, and she doesn't hope she'll run into him when she's out of the house either. Things are as they should be between them, and she's happy with how much sweetness that brings to her life. She's even a little sentimental when she and Sophie pile into the car to drive home, and tears up saying goodbye to her mom and dad. Heading out of town with the top down and the radio on, she's happy; happy to have been home to visit, and happy to be going home to live.

#


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two – The Fourth**

The girl who's just hit the baseball isn't much of an athlete, but there's something appealing enough about both her combination of embarrassment and her ability to laugh at it that makes Jordan smile and look a little closer. He's actually been having a pretty decent time at Shane and Andy's Fourth of July picnic, and as the afternoon spins along lazily, he finds himself looking at the pretty, pony-tailed brunette more than once, and liking what he sees. Liking it enough so that he's glad to notice she doesn't seem to be attached to any of the men there, and enough so that when he's ready for another beer and sees her standing by the cooler, he gets himself over there before she's walked away.

"Great day, huh?' he says, coming up next to her and reaching in for a beer.

"Perfect," she says, meeting his eyes.

He almost does a visible double take when he sees how pretty her smile is up close, but instead he does something just as unusual and lets himself stare.

"I'm, uh, Jordan," he says, after a pause, amused at himself. And then, since starting an actual conversation just for the sake of talking still isn't something he really does, he stands there, beer in hand, watching himself look at her.

"Jo," she tells him, picking up on the drift of it all and smiling a little bigger.

"So, Jo, do you work with Shane?"

Thankfully, she actually smirks at the idea. "You mean, am I a policewoman?"

"I'm kind of hoping not," he says, wondering just what's come over him.

"Well then," she says, pausing to tilt her head back and take a swallow of her beer before she grins full on, "you're in luck."

It's the grin that really does it, and so he clinks his beer bottle up against hers, his interest and the fact that he's not going anywhere so obvious that after another minute she invites him to come sit with her friends.

She's nice, Jordan finds himself thinking an hour later, still sitting with her at a picnic bench, after her friends have drifted off, nice, and very pretty, and fun. And even though it's not as if he hasn't met a million nice girls in his life, this one's got him intrigued. To

the point of actually enjoying talking to her and being interested in what she has to say.

Maybe it's because her family's Italian and she reminds him a little of his cousins that he feels comfortable around her right away. Maybe the fact that she grew up with 3 brothers and actually knows a lot about cars is what makes her easy to talk to, or finding out that she spends a lot of her spare time volunteering at an animal shelter when she's not working as a dental assistant makes him like her more. Maybe it's just how pretty she is, the way it makes him want to keep looking at her. And maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with having seen Angela Chase after so long, and remembering what it was like to let someone love him that's opened him up, made him think he could actually care about someone, let someone care about him. Because there's a moment, while he's sitting next to Jo at the picnic table when he remembers what it was like to feel this way, like life could be really good, a moment when he almost feels Angela Chase kiss his cheek and give him the go ahead.

"We're heading out," Shane calls as the sun lowers, walking in his direction with the picnic cooler in hand and little Stevie tucked under his arm.

"Yeah," Jordan nods, and Jo stands up at the same time he does, the two of them walking over together to where Andy and the few people left are pulling things together.

"Come to uncle Jordan, huh peanut," he says swooping down and grabbing three year old Mandy with one hand and picking her up, snagging a grocery bag with the other, and and grinning back at Jo, who seems to be appreciating the maneuver.

There's a loose straggle of a group movement exiting the park, and he notices two of the friends that had been at the table with them earlier have reappeared by her side, laughing and talking. By the time he's said goodbye to Andy, Shane and the kids, Jordan turns to see the back of Jo moving away through the parking lot, a friend on each side. He watches her for a second, appreciating the view, wondering if he should let her walk away, and then he takes off after her, calling her name, watching her turn and grin.

"Hey," he says, loving that grin, "could I take you out to dinner sometime?

She nods and bites her lip.

"Like tomorrow, maybe?"

The phones come out, their heads come together, and after she leans up on tiptoe and kisses his cheek before running back to her friends, he's stands there completely blown away, grinning like a fool.

#

"It's good for you," Andy laughs, three weeks later, shooting a rubber band across the desk in his direction, "I bet you've never had to work for it in your life."

"Yeah," he scoffs, and then smiles, remembering Angela Chase, "right. I was in high school once, you know."

"You're smiling like maybe that wasn't such a bad thing,"

"Whatever," he shrugs.

" _I'd like to take this slow_ ," Jo had told him over dinner that first night, and it's been weeks of dating now, weeks of something Jordan hasn't ever really done before. Coffees, dinners, Sunday hikes, even a movie in a multi plex, and then last night, dinner at her place followed by kissing and cuddling on her front room couch before he'd gone home slightly baffled and as unsatisfied as a fifteen year old. Not that he's given any of those specific details to Andy, but, as usual, as soon as she'd asked him how things were going and he'd said fine, she'd grinned and started in on him.

"Jo's coming out of a long time thing," Andy says, seriously, "plus, I don't think she's a very casual person. And she is ten years younger than you."

"Uh," he mutters, trying to neither say anything or get interested in what she has to say.

Jo having a past is no real news, and the fact that she's got nice written large all over her isn't either. And so what if maybe he is a little puzzled that a twenty seven year old woman who clearly likes him isn't ready to have sex with him after three weeks, but he's more out of touch with nice now than he was twenty years ago. For now, he's just enjoying being with someone likeable in this summer of long sunny days and warm evenings, someone so pretty, so sweet, so fun to be with.

"Hey," he tells Andy, "it's summertime and the living is easy. Don't make this into a big deal."

"First woman you've dated since I've known you, and it's not a big deal," she says, shooting another rubber band his way. This time it wings him and when he grimaces, she shakes her head and mutters, "just stating the obvious."

#

It should have been obvious from the start, Jordan finds himself thinking a few weeks later. Something that seems too good to be true usually isn't true, and Jo turning out to have her share of problems, including a break up she wasn't really over and a lot more complications than he would have imagined, shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. The surprise was just how unwilling he'd been to take on her complications and how disappointed he'd been in himself. He'd really hoped, for the first time he could remember, that he wasn't going to be alone forever, bumping along from occasional

flirtation to hook up to see you around, never loving anyone again. Driving away for the last time, leaving her crying while he tried not to be obvious about the fact that he couldn't get out the door fast enough, he realized how much he'd let himself hope for more, even for a minute found himself feeling bad about himself, thinking maybe he's not meant to stay around for anyone, maybe that's just the way it is for him, whether he likes it or not.

But he's not going down that road anymore. He'd hated himself for years without even knowing it for leaving Angela and just then, driving away from Jo's house, he'd found himself thinking of Angela, talking to her in his imagination, wishing he could talk to her for real. Because he'd liked Jo, he really had, but he'd loved Angela and that was something he understood now. Not that it changes anything, but because of Angela he knows what love feels like. And maybe it's just not up to him, whether that will happen again.

When he pulls up to his house, Clancy comes out of the back yard to meet him, and Jordan waits so they can walk up the steps together. When he'd moved into the house, years ago, they'd made a game of racing up them together, but Clancy was a lot younger then, and now he takes things slow.

"Hey buddy," Jordan says, as Clancy leans into his legs, pulling the dog's ears, grateful to have a physical connection to a living being, one that knows when he needs a little comforting.

It's a kind of love, he thinks to himself. Maybe not the kind you usually get but the kind he wants, where you're just there for someone. The kind that exists without questions, the kind where loving someone makes you go want to go closer to them when they hurt, instead of needing to get away.

#


	3. Chapter 3

_**Hi everyone. I wanted to say that, unfortunately, this story will probably be a slow go...I'm a slow writer and busy to boot. But...thank you so much to the people who've reviewed. To people who read and don't review...yes, you...I know i do that sometimes too. But, just to remind you, reviewing is how you say thank you to someone, and it is polite to say thank you now and then. And it's how you encourage writers, so if you want to see stories on this board...**_

 _ **Happy winter holidays to everyone in the fandom, and here we are with August in December,**_

 _ **xo,**_

 _ **pansy...**_

 **Chapter three - August Faire**

"Brain?"

"Fuck you," Brian grins back at him, walking across the lot of Catalano Motors, "how's it going?"

"Busy running the empire of mending and towing here," Jordan slides the pencil he's holding up behind one ear and leans back against the trunk of the car he's been looking at, "what about yourself?"

"I'm just home to visit the parents for a couple days. Still out in California. Same job, same girlfriend."

Jordan nods, and smiles to himself. Brian Krackow looks as different from the guy he knew in high school as is possible, and he's much easier socially, but when the two of them see each other they're still the same guys that sat in tutoring twenty years ago, talking about girls and life.

"You got time for lunch?" Brian asks.

"We're swamped in here this afternoon," Jordan says, genuinely sorry, "dinner maybe?"

"Okay. Let's go to Ondine. Seven o'clock?"

"Sure. We'll be grown ups," Jordan smirks, "why not. See you at seven."

He hasn't been in Angela's dad's restaurant since the last time he was there with Brian, a few years ago. It's not really his kind of place, and there's something a little too nostalgic about it for his comfort, being there, seeing Graham and remembering Angela. But the food's good and Brian likes it and Jordan enjoys his irregular reunions with Brian Krackow, more than he could have ever imagined. It will be good to catch up, he thinks, before leaning back into work. Good, at the end of a long day, to get cleaned up and go somewhere nicer than usual. Funny that he's doing it with Brian Krackow, but there you go. That's life.

#

He'd had to push a little to get home in time to shower and change. Living on the outskirts of town, half way into open country was something he liked, but on days like today he's had to rush. That's why he's halfway up the steps before he realizes Clancy hasn't come out of the back yard to meet him. He shakes his head, and heads back down the stairs, whistling.

"Clance," he calls, pushing through the gate and then he sees him, on his side under the back porch steps.

"Oh buddy," he says, crawling under the steps, kneeling down and tugging lightly on an ear, while Clancy feebly turns his head and licks Jordan's hand, "what's going on?"

Clancy's not able to get himself up, and for a moment Jordan almost panics. He has to shove and pull for a few steps before he can get his arms in position to pick him up to carry him to the truck. Clancy's a big dog, and it's not easy, but Jordan manages, laying him carefully on the seat before he pulls out his phone and calls the vet. He'll call Brian later, he thinks, starting the truck up and wheeling out.

#

I'm really sorry," Jordan apologizes again, running his hand back through his hair, wishing he hadn't quit smoking, "I was going to call and then I just got caught up in it."

"Jordan," Brian tells him, "it's okay. Really."

It's two hours later and they're sitting in a bar together, while Jordan's tries to calm down. He probably should have just gone home like they told him to after sitting in the vets office for an hour, but he didn't really quite know what to do with himself, and then he'd remembered that he'd forgotten to call Brian. They'd decided to keep Clancy overnight at the vets, but it looked like they might put him down tomorrow, and Jordan's as close to unhinged as he can remember being.

It's strange to see Jordan Catalano like this, Brian notes. All through high school, even when his life was shit, breaking up with Angela Chase and dropping out of school, Brian doesn't think he's ever seen Jordan actually look upset. Funny how you can sometimes let feelings touch you for animals more than people, Brian thinks. His girlfriend's dog is her best friend and he gets it. He looks at Jordan and decides to change the subject.

"Graham came out and talked to me for a while," he says, "caught me up on the family. Danielle's just finishing her doctorate in Nordic Mythology and Patti's running the two print shops, loving being a grandmother."

"I saw Angela earlier this summer," Jordan offers, "with her little girl. Ran into her in the Big Guy parking lot."

"Yeah? How'd she look?" Brian almost blushes, but there's no use playing it cool in front of Jordan. They've talked about it a couple of times over the years, without really going into any detail, but at least they've both acknowledged what Angela Chase had meant to them. In an odd way it's part of why they're still friends, because they'd both loved Angela. Still did. Always would. Not really much to say about it, but it was something they shared.

"Good. She looked good," he says, "it was great to see her."

They're both quiet for a minute, Brian nodding thoughtfully. He hasn't seen Angela himself since right after her daughter was born, when they'd talked briefly, standing outside her parent's house. She'd been maternally holding a tiny red-faced thing in a blanket, something he couldn't get his mind to accept, and the experience had shaken him deeply. It was only after he'd walked away from her and sat down on his front porch for a while, staring at the street, processing the whole thing, that he'd come to terms with the fact that the Angela Chase he'd been crazy about was gone and never coming back.

They sit together at the bar for a while longer, not saying much. Jordan sips a scotch, lost in thought, and Brian's unsure what else to say.

"So, uh, I could go with you tomorrow, if that would help," he offers as they stand up to leave.

Jordan blinks and shakes his head.

"I'll be okay," he says, "but thanks."

Even with Jordan looking freaked out, he's still turning heads, Brian notices. On the way out the door, he bets every woman in the place has given his friend the once over. And as usual, Jordan manages not to notice any of it.

"Take care of yourself," Brian says, as Jordan pulls out his keys.

"Brain, thanks huh? Sorry I'm such a mess."

They look at each other and give a half laugh and then a shrug. And then Brian watches Jordan drive away before he starts his own car and drives back to his parent's house to spend the night in his old room.

#

Jordan doesn't go in to work for a couple days after they put Clancy down, and at first, leaving the vets office, he doesn't want to go home either. The fact that there's no one to go home to, that now he really is alone, weighs on him almost enough to make him consider calling Jo, even though that idea lasts about a split second. Andy calls to check in with work stuff and invites him home for dinner regularly, which he declines, Shane drops by the house in full cop regalia and tries to get him out for pool, but Jordan, while grateful for his friends, is in mourning and shakes his head no. He understands that he needs a couple of days to get through the worst of this, and figures he can just stay home. He hangs around, sleeping, sitting on the couch playing guitar, putting away Clancy's water bowls, shaking his head, tearing up, feeling like shit, silently missing his friend. He does laundry, then puts away the dog blankets, thinks about moving to be closer to his kid, calls his kid, Jason, who is just as quiet on the phone as he is himself, and makes plans with his ex to pick him up for the weekend. He decides moving to Philadelphia isn't much of an idea, although he wishes he could move somewhere. He sits on the front porch and drinks coffee. He thinks about Angela Chase and then he thinks about Angela Chase some more. It's bittersweet, and maybe it's stupid, but it somehow comforts him, to close his eyes and remember her. He's glad she knows he loved her. He hopes she's happy.

#

"Hey," Jordan answers the phone, "what's up Brian?"

"Oh, uh, just thought I'd call to see how you're doing. You holding up all right?"

"I guess," Jordan says, "feels like shit, but I guess that's normal, right?"

"Pretty much, I guess."

There's a moment of silence. Neither of them is a phone talker, and while Jordan appreciates that this is a support your friend call, that doesn't mean they actually have to talk.

"Thanks Brain," he starts to say, ready to wrap up the call.

"I was going to," Brian says at the same time.

"Sorry," they both say.

"Sorry," they both say.

"Okay, look," Brian begins again. "I need to tell you something. I'm sorry I didn't tell you while I was there, but, well I didn't. Because of your dog and you know, it didn't seem like the right time."

"Oh. So go ahead now."

"Yeah, so. Angela's getting divorced."

"Angela?"

"Yeah. Graham told me, at the restaurant."

"Angela Chase?"

"Sharon Cherski's her divorce lawyer," Brian kind of snorts, "if you can believe that. Graham says Angela probably won't have to worry about money for the rest of her life."

"Shit."

"I thought you might be glad."

"That she's hurting? Getting divorced has to suck."

"No dude," Brian who lives in California now, says, "that she's available. Maybe."

"Oh," Jordan says, lowering himself into a chair because all of a sudden he feels like he needs to sit down. "Yeah. Maybe."


	4. Chapter 4 Fall Back

**Thanks everyone who's reviewing and reading. Thanks so much to writers drugstore cowgirl, gagirl29 and Helvetica Jones - it's so good to hear from you! and to candyhearts22 and love to travel and the other reviewers known as guest...i really appreciate your support.  
**

 **Chapter Four – Fall back**

"Here you go, sweetie," Angela says, tugging gently on the ear flaps of Sophie's hat before leaning in to kiss her, "happy first day of school. Study hard and have fun."

"Okay," Sophie tells her seriously, "I will. Bye Mom."

Watching as her daughter melts into the mass of children entering the doors of Meadow Brook Primary, Angela sighs and her eyes fill with tears. Again. It's been hard pretending to be normal for Sophie, blinking back the tears, trying to keep things as calm as possible, when what she's really wanted to do is melt down and quietly fall apart. It's been a month now, she tells herself, a whole month, since she walked in on Nate with one of his interns in full flagrante delicto, a phrase that had jumped into her mind and now seems permanently stuck there.

Pulling out of the school yard and heading home, the phrase rolls into a movie, the same movie her mind's been playing for a month. Jumping from one frame to another, it flashes back, from walking in on Nate to remembering when her mother had walked in on Graham and Halle kissing, twenty years earlier, and from there to Angela wondering if it had been her own fate to somehow recreate that same kind of dilemma for herself. Because, really, a voice chimes in, how could she have been so blind? Next, there's the memory of Nate's secretary, her face sick with sympathy as she let Angela know that this wasn't his first fling, followed by the feeling in her own stomach (felt all over again) when she told her husband their marriage was over. Reeling on, she helplessly replays the scenario of Nate packing a bag and leaving, repentant but somehow managing to be angry that his 'I'm sorry' hadn't been enough. And finally she re-remembers Nate Senior's phone call, and her beloved father-in-law's voice breaking as he told her how very sorry he was that his son had 'fucked this up so completely.'

And then, just like clockwork, Angela shakes herself and comes back to the present, to the country road she's driving down, and one last picture - her daughter's face; Sophie, the only reason she hasn't let herself fall apart.

But now that school has started again, Angela is free to cry her days away. With nothing planned until Sophie's three o'clock pick up, days that a month ago would have been filled with the social events and charity fundraisers of her former life are as empty as the huge house she and Sophie live in.

But she isn't going to cry the day away. And of course the house isn't really empty, either. It's full of stuff, beautiful stuff actually, carefully collected and arranged, part of the beautiful life that she and Nate and Sophie supposedly had. And Nate, or Dr. Nathan Brandston the third, heir to family wealth and position by birth, busy and prominent heart surgeon by profession, hadn't been home all that much even when they were supposedly happily married, so there's no logical reason why the house feels so empty now. But it does. Actually it feels worse than empty. It feels dead, kind of like she does.

She turns off the road, driving past trees with the first hint of fall colors, passing the stone gatehouse at the property's entrance, following the curved drive to park at the side of the house. Ever since Nate's moved out, she'd been going in through the kitchen entrance, not wanting to even look at the huge formal entryway, the unused living room, the grand sweeping staircase to the upstairs and her bedroom. She's been using the back entrance and the steep narrow kitchen stairway built a hundred and fifty years ago for servants, just to avoid the rest of the house.

"This place is way too big for the two of us," Angela thinks again, looking at it from the outside, shaking her head. She'd loved it once, a rambling fairy tale country estate of a place, but after ten years of living in an estate, she's over it. She'd been content to let things be because Nate loved it, and now it looks like she'll have to let things be for a while longer, for Sophie's sake, but it's not something she feels great about.

Sitting in the car, she shifts her view to look out on the meadow. The horses are out there now, along with Sophie's pony, Strawberry, and that's a comfort, to have something like that to look at, to be able to walk into the stable and sniff the air, hang over the fence, pat the horses and watch the meadow through the seasons. If it wasn't for Sophie, the horses, Jesse who's in the stable every morning, Mrs Flynn the housekeeper who comes three times a week, and her husband who care-takes the house and grounds, Angela probably wouldn't be talking to anyone these days.

Sighing again, she steps out of the car, and walks over to lean up against the meadow fence.

"Morning Jesse," she calls, waving, as an extremely thin woman with short cropped hair walks towards her truck.

"Hi Angela," Jesse calls back, rustling something out of her glove compartment before stepping up to the fence and standing quietly next to Angela. Jesse's been taking care of the horses since before Sophie was born, moving quietly and reliably through the stables and meadow almost every day. She's always been a little reserved with Angela, but she and Sophie adore each other, and these days Angela is grateful for any friendly sign of life on the premises, for any continuity of normal.

"So, Sophie made it to her first day of school?" Jesse asks, after a minute.

"Second grade," Angela nods, registering this new attempt at familiarity. "How did that happen?"

"It goes fast," Jesse tells her. "Seems not long ago my two were that age and now here they are in high school."

"I'm still not used to her even being in school," Angela pauses, "really, I'm not sure what to do with myself without her around."

Jesse nods quietly but doesn't say anything, and Angela reflects unhappily on the ridiculousness of her privileged position, of being perfectly able to continue on doing nothing forever. She images that someone else could, just possibly, carry on as if nothing had changed. That imaginary someone else might even be able to stay in the same social clubs, rub shoulders with her former in-laws, and continue on unperturbed in the insulated world of old money she'd married into.

"Did you work before you were married?"

Angela looks at Jesse, laughs and shakes her head in surprise.

"Of course I worked. I waitressed all through college," she says, puzzled that anyone might have thought otherwise. "Then I got an internship for a literary agency and thought I might do something in publishing. That's where I met Nate. He was a friend of my boss. They rode together sometimes."

"I always thought maybe you were an interior designer or something," Jesse told her. "the way you fixed up the house and decorated it and all, when you moved in."

"Hardly," Angela says, a little flummoxed that someone she's known for almost ten years could see her that way, "I did enjoy fixing up the house. But I think it was just so overwhelming moving here, into Nate's world, into this house, and I had to do something, so I threw myself into it. I wasn't used to not working."

There's some bitterness to her voice, and she lets it trail off, looking down at the fence with a frown. She's never really talked like this to Jesse before. She could wonder just what kind of an insulated world she's been living in for the past ten years, but she already knows, and is a little disgusted with herself to have slipped into it so completely. Probably if Nate hadn't swept her off her feet when she was fresh out of college, if she hadn't believed she was falling into some kind of fairy tale, believed that he was bigger than the claustrophobic world he came from and that his lazer focused ambition to be a good doctor was based on helping people rather than prestige, she would never have let herself settle into the position of being a rich housewife with people working for her.

"Um," Jesse says, probably, Angela thinks, because she doesn't know what else to say, but then she surprises her.

"I admired that," she says, "the way you made the house so nice."

Angela's mouth forms a silent little "oh."

"Did you ever have some kind of dream job?" Jesse continues, looking at her quizzically.

"I guess I fantasized about having a country B&B for a while somewhere along the way," Angela laughs and rolls her eyes, "but I don't think that's anything I'd want to do now."

"No," Jesse agreed. "That would be a lot of work. And you don't really need to work, so why should you?"

"I'd like to be useful, you know?" She wonders if she sounds as pathetic as she feels. "I don't know if that's even possible, at this point."

"You're on all those charity boards, right? They raise money for those programs."

"I don't think I ever want to sit on another board in my life," Angela tells her. "or wear another suit. I want to do something real, you know?"

"Maybe something with a literacy program," she continues, almost talking to herself, as a memory of Jordan Catalano flashes through her mind, "I always thought that was important, helping people with reading problems."

"I can see you doing that. There are probably programs you could find out about through the library. And meanwhile, being a mom is about as real as it gets."

Angela looks at Jesse and nods, and then the two of them smile at each other. It's a small smile, but a warm one, and once again Angela's eyes fill with tears.

Her tears don't seem to throw Jess off at all. She nods back with a look of understanding, and then moves on with her day, turning and heading back towards the stable.

Angela stands for another minute at the fence, letting the conversation turn itself over in her mind. Up until right now, she's been too busy keeping herself from falling apart to give more than a panicked thought to what she might do with the rest of her life, but maybe now she has the beginning of an actual perspective. And even better, she's got an idea about what she can do with herself while she regroups and works out what the pragmatics of actually being useful might be.

She wonders if Sophie will like the idea of moving into the gatehouse.

… #...

"Jordan?" Patti says, looking up in surprise when he walks into her office, "how nice to see you."

"Patti," he says, smiling and ducking his head, not sure how to start, "how're you doing?"

He doesn't look so different right now from the boy who once drank a half gallon of milk in her kitchen, Patti thinks to herself, so she isn't really all that surprised when he looks back up at her and asks about Angela.

"She's doing all right, I think," Patti tells him, "It's not exactly an amicable separation and she doesn't really say much to me or Graham on the phone, but I think she's holding up all right."

"I thought about writing to her," Jordan says, trying to gauge the situation, "I mean, just to tell her how sorry I am that she's having a hard time."

"I think she'd appreciate that, Jordan," Patti says, looking at him carefully. "She can probably use all the support she can get right now."

It's true that he's thought about writing. Because, whatever kind of move he'd like to make, and he's considered a few of them, he knows he can't make an asshole one. 'Not amicable' and Angela 'never having to work again' sort of tells him that the husband had messed up pretty bad, and 'she's holding up okay' meant she'd been hit hard. He's probably the last person on her mind right now, and while he knows that it might be totally inappropriate, he's also thought of driving up to her front door, or of calling in the middle of the night, or, even worse, of doing nothing.

Jordan's not one to spin his head around much. It's much more his personal style to stick with what's in front of him and numb the other stuff out, so he's a little perplexed by the way he keeps wanting to reach out to Angela, even if it does have to be in simple friendship. That's the right attitude, he knows. It's just that ever since Brian had said the words Angela and available in the same sentence, he's felt something tugging at him, something trying to surface, something inside him trying to get to what could be.

Patti is watching him as though she's trying to figure something out as well. She wonders if it's at all wise to let Jordan Catalano, the love of her daughters young life, anywhere in Angela's vicinity. She'd always liked Jordan, been fond of him actually, but there's no mistaking the fact that he has to be pretty seriously interested in Angela to have shown up here. And Angela's fragile now. Maybe she should tell Jordan to stay away, say something to discourage him.

They look at each other across her desk for a minute and then she writes Angela's address and phone number down on a piece of paper and hands it to him.

"I think it's all right that I'm giving you this," she says, "You aren't going to show up there unannounced or anything, right? Turn into some kind of stalker?"

"I'll behave," he shrugs, looking a little embarrassed. "Thank you, Patti."

"I know you will, Jordan," she says, wondering what she's doing. "And you're welcome. "

#


	5. Chapter 5

**Happy Valentines Day everyone...**

 **Chapter Five - Another Letter**

"Where's Clancy, dad?"

Jordan knows that he should have said something about it before they got out of the car. Walking back down the first two steps, he squats till he's at eye level with his kid, who's standing there looking puzzled, backpack dragging on the ground.

"Clancy was getting pretty old, you know, Jason. He died a couple weeks ago."

Jason goes still for a minute before he tears up and looks at Jordan with a confused, lost expression.

"I know, bud," Jordan sighs, picking him up and carrying him up the steps, ruffling his hair and tucking his head into his shoulder, "I know. I feel pretty bad about it myself."

He gets the front door opened, shifting Jason slightly, feeling his little arms wrap up around his neck, and then carries him straight up to his bedroom, depositing him on the bed and sitting down next to him, wondering what else he needs to say.

Jason beats him to it, though.

"Aren't you lonesome dad? Without him?"

"Well," Jordan says, hesitating, "I miss Clancy a lot. But I'm not really lonesome. And I have you."

"Yeah. But I don't live here dad," Jason replies without missing a beat.

"Right," Jordan says, grateful that at least they aren't talking about whether Clancy's in heaven, although who knows if that will come up later, "but you're here now, right?"

He puts his arm around him and gives him a squeeze and Jason gives a slow nod.

"We'll go get burgers later, okay? Maybe play some ball and watch a movie too."

"Okay."

"Put your stuff away and then come on downstairs," Jordan says, standing up and moving towards the door, while Jason opens his backpack and starts digging through it.

He's halfway into the hallway when the voice behind him says "Maybe you should have a girlfriend, Dad."

He couldn't have come up with this one on his own, Jordan thinks. Five years old. He must have heard Donnelle talking to her friends or something.

"Maybe you're right, Jason," he calls back over his shoulder, "you know anyone? Any nice girls in kindergarten?"

It always feels good to make his kid laugh.

#

One of the details no one had considered at first, when Nate moved out, was the fact that his horses were stabled in what was going to be his ex-wife's front yard. This had turned, quickly, into no small problem, because riding was a given for Nate, who'd played polo in his youth and still watched the local polo matches wistfully. He rode at least a few times a week and they'd always ridden together as a family, the three of them, as well as socially and with the whole Branston clan, who were horse crazy to the core. Angela, who'd eventually come to love riding, had a horse of her own and Sophie had Strawberry, and, in addition to Nate's Bemah, so named because he'd cost exactly as much as Angela's new BMW, they'd kept three other beautiful horses. For now, Bemah was stabled at Nate's parents place and today, Nate and Sophie were planning on riding out from the house before Sophie had her second sleep-over at Nate's new place.

It would have made total sense for Angela and Sophie to move out of the house that had been in his family since his great-great grandfather's time and that housed the stables, but everyone had quickly agreed that, for now at least, Sophie's life should stay in place as much as possible. Sharon Cherski, negotiating a rather messy but extremely luxurious settlement for Angela, had advised her keeping the house with the proviso that if and when she decided to sell, the first option would go to Nate or the Branston family.

Angela was thinking about selling right now, standing in her bedroom window, watching her husband of a month ago pull up in front of the house and head for the stable.

"Sweetie," she called, heading down the hall towards Sophie's room, "daddy's here. Are you ready?"

By the time the door bell rings, she's gotten Sophie together and downstairs, so that she can casually say "go open the door for daddy," and then follow along a decent distance with a polite hello for Nate.

"Give me a hug honey," she tells Sophie, "I won't be here when you come back from riding. You can just put your pack in daddy's car now, why don't you, and I'll see you tomorrow."

Nate gave her a pained look that Angela manages to ignore until the door has closed behind them. This was already way too uncomfortable for her. Stomach churning and insides shaking, she sank down on the front room couch for the first time in weeks, telling herself to breathe.

#

 _"Dear Angela_ ,"

Jordan stares at the paper for a minute, remembering that he'd spelled her name with two l's once, a long time ago.

 _"I saw your mom the other day and asked her for your address. I wanted to write you.."_

That already sounds pretty dumb, he thinks, after staring at it for a minute. He wonders what people actually write letters for anyhow, since he's managed to spend practically his whole adult life without doing it. Addressing the envelope of Jason's birthday cards is probably about as close to this as he's come in years, and even that's always felt weird and oddly impersonal.

He tries again.

" _Angela,_

 _I heard you're splitting up with your husband. I hope you're doing okay._

 _I'm thinking about you…."_

Shit. This is way too many words to say nothing. He could text, maybe? But that feels like calling, out of the blue, like maybe she'd look at it and think Jordan who and why's he here all of a sudden?

" _Angela,_

 _I just wanted to let you know…."_

Exactly what is it he wants to let her know anyways? That he's alive and available back in hometown, hicksville, P.A.? That's not what this was supposed to be, and it isn't supposed to be a big deal either, but somehow it's turning into one. And if it was anyone but Angela he'd have blown it off by now, but it is Angela and he's already thought about it way too much.

He decides that he'd better just buy a greeting card. Or call Brian. Maybe he'd better do both.

#

Angela has no clue where she's going, besides away, when she gets into the car. There's some idea about a paint store or something somehow related to fixing up the gatehouse floating in her mind, but that's really just an excuse. She needs to drive for a while, she thinks shakily, and so she does. There are country roads stretching on forever once she's off the ten acres belonging to the house, and eventually she feels herself calming down, making her way along empty two-lane roads lined with leaves the color of autumn, until finally the drive becomes a pleasure, her and the perfectly handling car rolling along together in a spacious country world like something off a television commercial. A half hour later, she sees the sign for Pipersville and almost feels herself smile, and in just a few more minutes she's pulled up in front of the old converted chapel that now houses the library.

#

"What are we doing here, dad?" Jason says, looking up at him, puzzled.

"I need a card for a friend," he says, "remember?"

Jordan looks at the shopfull of cards, wondering why there are so many of these things. There's four walls full of them here, and racks in between. He's standing in front of two whole rows of blank cards with flowers on them, nice photos, that are above the rows of cat cards, to the right of rows of car cards. There are cards for everything you could think of, including "friendship," - " _Just dropped in to say hello_ ," one of them cheerily states while some kind of Mary Poppins figure floats from an umbrella, and "sympathy,"- ' _In deepest sympathy for your loss_ ,' is printed in bold (Times New Roman, he remembers it from the print shop days) on somber gray stock. Jordan thinks that, ridiculous as it seems, either one of the two might do for the situation.

"Who's it for, dad? Is it for a birthday?"

"Someone I went to school with. She lives far away. She's having a hard time."

"Oh."

Jason stands closer to the cat cards, staring at them with a serious look on his face, and Jordan has to laugh. He half closes his eyes and thinks he'll go with whatever card his hand reaches out and lands on, but then he opens them and sees something that almost seems right.

#

Angela had been sitting in an easy chair in the Pipersville library for almost an hour, absorbed in the stack of Architectural Digests and design books she'd grabbed, feeling incredibly grateful for the fact that there was actually somewhere she could go, an oasis in the world where there was no danger of running into any of her former in-laws.

"I guess I need a library card," she said, finally stepping up to the desk and smiling back at Ellen James, who had greeted her by name with a shy smile.

The library was one of the ongoing local projects that Angela's charitable board had helped support, and Ellen had barely manged to restrain herself from gushing over the lovely Mrs. Branston. She'd grown up in Bucks County, where everyone knew the Branston family, and she was just a little older than Nate, old enough to remember the photos of his and Angela's wedding that had been in the local society magazine back then, and how the county had buzzed with the newness of them. Ellen had even been in their home once, years later, for a library fundraising party, when Angela had been very gracious with the library staff, walking them out to see the stables, pausing and chatting to give them time away from the sophisticated, formally dressed buzz of wealth that filled the party.

Of couse the Branston family and the charitable board didn't actually use the library, so it had been surprising to see Angela there, surprising to help her fill out a library card application, but Ellen smiled again as she handed it to her.

"It's so nice to see you using the library, Mrs Branston," she told her, "and if there's anything you'd like us to order for you, we'd be more than happy to."

"Thank you, Ellen," she said, a little absent mindedly, "Please call me Angela." She was trying to think about opening her mouth, about really doing something instead of thinking about it. Maybe getting started on the gatehouse was enough of a step to begin with, she thought to herself, and she shuffled the books, arranging them in her arm to carry out.

But then she paused and looked at Ellen James.

"Ellen," she said. "I think I'm interested in working with a literacy program. I'd really like to help people with their reading."

#

It's just a week later that an square envelope comes in the mail, an envelope with a return address for J. Catalano.

Inside, there's a card with a photo of cherry trees in full bloom, and she pauses for a split second before opening it, wondering what he's possibly written inside.

 _Angie_ ,

 _I hope you're doing okay_.

 _Love,_

 _Jordan_

She shakes her head and tears up, incredibly touched by him calling her Angie, by the fact that Jordan Catalano went out and bought a card for her and wrote something nice to her and signed it love, and put it in the mail.

" _Jordan_ , she says to him in her mind, " _Only twenty years after your last letter._ _W_ _hat an improvement_."

She reads it again and smiles.

" _Angie_ ," she reads, remembering how he'd call her that sometimes, shyly, teasingly, affectionately.

It's only a few breaths later that the cherry trees on the front of the card tell her the rest. They tell her that Jordan Catalano remembers that day in the spring, that day back when she was fifteen and he'd taken her up the country hill to see a meadow full of violets and cherry trees, that day that was a sort of epiphany of their high school romance. It's an extremely sentimental thing of him to have done, she thinks. And then she thinks it was maybe a kind of bold thing to have done on his part too, almost a way of letting her know that he still loves her.

But that's a maybe she can't really take in now. She can just take in him wanting to give her some support, and she does that, gratefully, tearfully. So much life, she thinks to herself looking at the card, so much kindness in the world. She wants to have her part in that, to open up again and let life touch her, reach out and touch it herself. She touches the card like a prayer and thinks that she will.

#


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi there.**

 **I know it's been a while.** **This story isn't coming easy** ** **and** ** **I apologize if it's just too dull. Right now**** I'm regretting not having plotted it out more thoroughly before starting to post. I can really relate to people starting stories and not finishing them.  
**

 **Meanwhile, this is what we've got, and finally after a lot of chipping away at the chapter, it turned into fun. If you like it and want to encourage me further, i'm sure you know how to.**

 **xo,**

 **Pansy...**

 **Chapter Six**

 **Trick or treat**

"You're whistling," Andy says, looking up from her desk and grinning.

"And?" he quirks his eyebrow and smirks at her before draping his jacket over the back of the chair and sitting down at his desk.

"That's good," she smiles, turning back to the invoice she'd been looking at, not wanting to say too much, "nice to hear you being musical and all again."

"Right," Jordan ducks his chin into a nod, knowing what she means and looks at the stack of papers in front of him, "still standing. Lived to fight another day, fix another engine, tow another vehicle."

It's meant as a joke, and it's said that way, but there's the tiniest bite to Jordan's voice, something that Andy registers just like she registers the way he's still been quieter than usual for the last couple weeks, just slightly preoccupied, at the low end of communicative, even for him. It's ridiculous how well she reads him, she reflects, rolling her eyes and reaching for the phone, watching him drum his fingers on the desk before standing up and heading for the garage after all of thirty seconds. He's definitely got something on his mind she thinks, but she's not sure what it is.

In a way, Jordan isn't sure himself. He knows that somewhere in there, between losing Clancy and imagining that something could happen with Angela, there'd been a moment of clarity, of staring life in the face. And then, after he'd managed to write a few lines on that card and mail it, something had shifted inside him again, fallen into a kind of perspective. Clancy was gone. Period. Angela and his memories and feelings around her, real as they were, were just memories and feelings. What he really did have was a five year old kid that loved him and a life that was pretty much okay. If he had to spend all of it managing his uncle's garage, here in this town, that was pretty much okay too. The thing was, Jordan thought, and kept thinking, that maybe he should make a choice about if it was okay enough. Because after all, he's thirty-seven. He's not dead; in fact he might be around for a lot longer, and maybe, just maybe now, he could still choose something else.

The problem, he reflects, standing by the coffee pot, staring blankly out the open doors of the garage, is that he's never really chosen anything before. A few moves, Philly and New York city and in and out of this town, a few bands that had happened and fallen apart all by themselves, and a few girls but not really anyone he'd wanted all that much when it came down to it, something it always inevitably did come down to. Around those things, the rest of Jordan's life has just quietly spilled out and unfolded, and, he tells himself, it's been okay. Maybe he's lonely sometimes, maybe he dreams of Angela Chase, maybe he remembers wanting to live in the mountains, wanting to make music. But is there anything he wants now, enough to choose it, try to make it happen? He keeps turning it around in his mind and at the same time he wonders if there's any need to create another life for Jordan Catalano, who, he reflects, has been pretty unremarkable so far. He looks out at the leaves falling and thinks of the snow that will be here soon, and then of the mountains. He thinks of disappearing into something white, of leaving no trace of himself behind, of holing up somewhere alone. He thinks there's something about that idea that he likes. Maybe if it wasn't for Jason, he might just go that way, but it really isn't an option.

"Jordan," one of the mechanics calls, bent over the open hood of an old Toyota, "come have a look at this, will you?"

He pulls himself out of his head, takes a last lingering look out the door and goes to work.

#

"So what have you got for me?" Angela says, smiling in spite of herself at the sound of Sharon Cherski's, aka her divorce lawyer's, excitement.

"Trick or treat?"

"Uh, treat please," she says, "I think I already got the trick part."

"We got it all. The settlement. The house, the staff, your horses of course, the cabin, the child support, Sophie's education, alimony until Sophie is twenty one, and money to give you any kind of degree or career training during that time. You, my dear, are set for life."

"Wow."

"Told you. And you don't even need to feel bad about it. That whole family is floating in moola."

"Well, that never was the part I felt bad about," Angela says, and pauses. "So is there a trick part?"

"The house can't be sold outside the family, unless none of them can meet your best outside offer for a period of one year. The visitation rights are rock solid. And Sophie will make her debut to society, come the time. Nothing new."

"I still don't like the debutante thing. What if she doesn't want to do it?"

"She'll have to slug it out with Nate and his mom, then. It's almost the only point in the whole settlement they weren't giving in on."

"It's done then."

"I can drive up with the papers tomorrow. What do you say?"

"I say yes ma'm Sharon, please and thank you, and come for lunch."

"I'll bring the champagne. And the candy corn. There's tons of it around the office. Oh, and tell Sophie hi for me."

"Sophie's just left with Nate for the weekend. They're driving up to the cabin together. He needs to get his stuff out, and they'll stay overnight. Sophie's got a few friends she likes to visit up there, so it will be nice for her."

"You change the locks after he's done, okay?"

"Seriously?"

"Angela, I'm a divorce lawyer," Sharon sighs. "You don't want to know how serious I am. Just do it, okay?"

"Okay, okay, deal. Just bring the champagne tomorrow."

#

"What are we going to do in the mountains Dad?"

Jason fidgets a bit in his booster seat and looks puzzled, and Jordan looks over at him and smiles. He doesn't know exactly how his kid got the habit of including the word dad in almost every sentence he says to him, but it's pretty endearing.

"I just want to look around. See how I like it. I used to want to live in the mountains, you know?"

"Oh. So do you want to live there now Dad?""

"Maybe. That's why we're going to go poke around. See how we like it."

"Well would you still have a garage in the mountains if you lived there?"

"I don't know Jason. We're just going to look around for now, see how it feels, okay?"

"I'd still be able to come stay with you wouldn't I? If you moved to the mountains Dad? It wouldn't be too far away?"

"I'm not moving anywhere too far away from you, Buddy."

He reaches over to ruffle Jason's hair, wondering if he was ever that vulnerable.

"Okay," his kid nods seriously, "that's good."

"Right," he nods back emphatically, and then he thinks that the town shouldn't be much further now. He wonders if it's changed much since it captured his imagination back when he was twelve years old.

#

"I think you'd better stay here tonight," Angela giggles, somewhere after the second bottle of champagne.

There's candy corn spilled all over the table and the remains of their lunch have been pushed to the side, where they're likely to remain for a while, given that she and Sharon are moving themselves to the living room with bottle number three.

"I don't think I've been so drunk since high school," Sharon says. "The time I puked on Kyles shoes, behind the bleachers."

"Don't puke now. This stuff's too good to waste."

Angela sinks into the down sofa and curls up on her side.

"I won't," Sharon tells her, doing likewise on the matching adjacent sofa. "I might have to take a little nap though. This is the most comfortable couch I've been on in my life."

"Matches the champagne," Angela mutters, and when Sharon looks at her questioningly, she grimaces and says "the color of money."

"Better get used to it," Sharon grins and closes her eyes.

#

Jordan can't tell what's different, him or the place, but the town of Tidsbury isn't singing to him and he's surprised by how much that disappoints him. It's definitely still a beautiful setting; the trees in their full autumnal splendor, the town old and calm, the people living small town lives, the river running through it all. If he looked at it objectively, Tidsbury had some of the exact things he'd thought that he wanted. What was missing maybe was something in him, the part of him that had been young enough once to look out at the world and think there was magic in it, that maybe he could find a way to live in that magic.

"What do you think of this place, Jason?" he asks, wondering if his kid maybe sees something different than he does.

"It's okay," he says, looking confused, "Is this where you want to live dad?"

"I thought I did once. I liked it when it was snowing."

Jordan shakes his head, remembering himself blinking and turning in wonder at the whiteness all those years ago.

"It's not going to snow now, is it Dad?"

"Not for a while Jason. Maybe we'll come back when it's snowing."

"We're still going to stay here tonight, though, right Dad? And ride the train tomorrow?"

"Absolutely."

He rests his hand on Jason's shoulder for a minute and wonders if disappointment is just inevitable when you let your dreams sit on a shelf for too long. Maybe magic isn't something you can depend on finding in a particular place or person. Maybe even Angela Chase could turn out to be a disappointment if they tried being together after all these years. He doesn't much like that thought, but it does have the stinging ring of truth about it.

He looks up at the mountains and thinks that maybe magic is always there but sometimes goes underground, or isn't easy to see. It's not something he's going to figure out, he tells himself, that's for sure. Maybe magic, if it exists, just comes when it comes.

He glances down at his kid, who's looking around, his eyes wide open.

"You feel like walking?" he asks, and when Jason looks up and nods yes, he smiles.

"Let's walk down to the river then," he says.

#

By the time they head out the next day, Jordan's glad that he came, if only to have seen what it's like to be with his kid in a new setting. His normal visits to Philly, or the weekends when Jason come to stay with him, have a totally familiar routine to them, and while that makes for a certain comfort level, it also makes for a way of moving through them by rote, of not really needing to be present or pay too much attention. Being here, navigating the new town , the different streets and cafes, he's kept his eye on Jason more, seen the expressions that cross his face, tuned in a little deeper. He's realized just how much he loves his son. It's funny, he thinks, that he came to this place looking for something and instead found what he already had.

But he does like Tidsbury. Not exactly in the way he'd liked it a long time ago, but there was still something about it. He could feel the sky big here, the elements close and he likes the sense of that. At the same time, he knows it would be okay for him to never come back here again, that whatever had opened here once wasn't something to be chased after.

At the gas station, after taking Jason in to the bathroom, washing his hands and heading back towards the truck, Jordan pauses to check out the new Jag XJ at the next pump. It's a pretty thing, even with the at least seventy-five thou sticker price of it, he thinks, knowing just how much maintenance it must cost to keep it on the road. Way too much for him to want, no matter how sexy, is his opinion, but you still have to admire the way it looks and drives.

"Do I know you?" a small voice says a minute later, while he's lifting Jason up into the booster seat, and he turns around to see a little girl looking up at him, her forehead wrinkled.

"I don't know," he says, pausing to think about it and smiling at her, "do you?"

"Maybe?"

She's standing there, about to get into the jag with a guy who's probably her dad and he's smiling in a kind of amused way.

"Sophie, you can't just walk up to people and ask them if you know them," he tells her. "Nate," he says, introducing himself, "and Sophie."

"Jordan," he replies, reaching out and meeting Nate's handshake, gesturing up to the booster seat, "and Jason."

"You're from Three Rivers?" Nate says. I saw your license plate. My wi -" he catches himself and a frown crosses his face - "I mean, Sophie's mom is from there."

"Well, maybe I have met you then," Jordan says, all of a sudden remembering exactly where and when, but not wanting to say so. What he wants now, fervently, is to get away from Angela's ex-husband before this conversation goes any further.

"Nice meeting you again maybe, Sophie," he says, making her smile. "Nate," he nods.

He rests his arm on Jason's leg, indicating the need to move on, and then he nods at them again, Nate staring a bit and the little girl looking a lot like Angela with her forehead scrunched tight.

Climbing into his truck, while several shades of weird are going on inside of him, Jordan hopes that he hadn't looked as awkward as he felt.

"Ready to hit the road?" he inquires, leaning over and checking the straps to Jason's seat, seeing the jag pull away out of the corner of his eye.i

"Yeah," Jason tells him. "Who were those people, dad?"

"Just folks getting gas, Buddy," he tells him, wheeling out in the opposite direction, heading towards home.

#


End file.
